Chesterfield Jazz Club presents Pat McCarthy, guitar

From Pat's website, www.patmccarthyjazz.co.uk [//www.patmccarthyjazz.co.uk]
"I began playing the guitar at 12 years old. I had already played the violin for several years. One Christmas, i was taken to visit my Great Uncle Ted Symonds at his hairdressing shop in Rutland Street, Grimsby. He opened the case of an arch top guitar.He took out a beautiful instrument and played a few bars of a Charlie Christian tune. I loved it.I left school at 16 and served an apprenticeship as a roof thatcher, before becoming a working musician with my first pro band, an Elvis Presley tribute act called Raving Rupert. I went on to do a cruise, a summer in France and a couple of years' residency in the Caf de Paris in Leicester Square. I toured Europe for a couple of years with Belgian singer Cindy Nelson, returned to the UK and studied classical guitar with Ada Greetham. In Grimsby I met drummer Paul McGrath and joined his quintet. The Rick Woolgar/Pat McCarthy Group and the Pat McCarthy Quartet were a natural progression from Paul's band. The Pat McCarthy Quartet recorded two albums - Hetty's Dance featuring Dave Newton and Art's Blues featuring Phil Ware. The quartet worked continuously for several years, often backing the great and the good from the UK jazz scene. The quartet also formed the nucleus of the John Warren project - an eight-piece band which performed the music of Canadian composer John Warren. Under John's leadership we performed with Kenny Wheeler and Andy Sheppard. More recently I have been working with vocalist Shannon Reilly. We recorded a couple of albums and toured several times for Jazz North and NRTF. I also had the opportunity to work with Alan Barnes on two projects - Fish Tales and Requiem. Alan and I shared the writing of the themes for both projects and Alan arranged all the music for a great line up of players including Gilad Atzmon, Mark Nightingale, Dave Green, Sebastian De Krom, Dean Masser, Neil Yates and myself".